Not even two months into his term, Gov. Rick Scott is already hurting his credibility as the "CEO" governor.

He sold voters on his knack to govern Florida like a business. We all took that to mean he would make decisions based on facts and financials after thorough due diligence. Yet when Scott killed high-speed rail this week, he used little more than ideology and politics.

He said goodbye to the number-crunching, bid-vetting pragmatism of the boardroom and hello to the fear-mongering of Tea Partiers' living rooms.

He sucks in the state with a couple of billion from the federal taxpayers, and then they end up getting hit with billions more in construction, plus getting stuck with a money-losing operation and infinite pension obligations to the government union workers who run it.

And of course the construction contracts also have to go to Obama’s union pals.

"Case in point: Most governors unveil their budget proposals in Tallahassee where the serious business of negotiating the state's budget plays out, but Scott turned his spending cuts into a Tea Party pep rally..."

The ‘federal money’ being offered is nowhere NEAR enough to complete a high-speed rail project of any significance.

Where would the rest of the money need to come from? Where would the OPERATING budget deficit (and there WOULD be an operating deficit) need to come from?

Right. From STATE tax revenues.

THAT is why it is a good business decision to turn the money down. States honestly cannot afford to take it given the strings that are attached and the future expenditures required to make it work.

From the start, the whole ‘federal stimulus money for high speed rail’ canard foisted by Joey Biden and the rest of the ‘Dysfunctional Dumbasses of Dunderheadedness’ has been a plot to make fiscally conservative state governors/legislatures look ‘bad’ by turning it down.

“Well golly, will you look at that! They TURNED DOWN $XXX Million for high speed rail in their state. Clearly they don’t care about jobs. Clearly they’re not thinking of the CHEEEEEEEEEELDREN! Those conservatives certainly are EEEEEEEEVIL, aren’t they?”

...

11
posted on 02/18/2011 9:26:20 AM PST
by WayneS
(Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. -- James Madison)

If such a railroad had any possible chance of making a profit, CSX or Norfolk & Southern would have already built it. High speed rail is a joke. It would cost 10-100X that of an equivalent freeway to build, operate, and maintain, and would drastically reduce the public’s ability to move about freely.

Plus, if any stops were added to the route, and given that it would pass Disney along with a number of other communities, many would), the actual speed would likely barely rival that of I-4. And, it wouldn’t take long for the TSA to get their fascist paws into the act.

Fact is, people would have to drive to the station to board the train. They’d have to get there early enough for TSA to properly grope them. They’d have to leave their firearms at home. They’d have to rent a vehicle at the destination end. And they’d have to share a space with a bunch of smelly liberals, and would have to endure poor service and schedule delays from the union staff.

If the government was really concerned with the amount of time it takes to get from Orlando to Tampa, they’d add 2 isolated lanes to I-4 and raise the speed limit to 120 on them.

14
posted on 02/18/2011 9:31:47 AM PST
by meyer
(We will not sit down and shut up.)

You Floridians with sanity need to maintain a constant - now through 2012 - letters to the editor campaign, regarding a “high speed rail” project, as follows:

If the high speed rail line would never stand on its own, without perpetual tax payer subsidies, then there is no reason to build it in the first place. On the other hand, if that project would really be such a great financial venture and is so needed for Florida’s main industry - tourism - then Disney and the rest of the big corporations profiting from tourism should build and operate the rail project themselves; they don’t need taxpayers to pay for it.

Good points, however if “the attractions” take the path of sports teams, we will still end up paying for it. The people of my little hamlet in east Hillsborough county are still paying for a ‘high speed’ stadium for a football team that blacked out several non-capacity home games this year. The ‘benefits’ just go on and on.....

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